Page 136 of 36 Hours

Kim was thrilled to hear the panic in his voice. The fact that he no longer had any power over her was not something he’d anticipated.

A few more steps down.

‘Have you ever heard the phrase “unnamed male”?’ Kim asked, pausing to call back up to him.

He nodded down at her.

‘That will be you in about one hour’s time. Your suicide will not be related to the Jester case, and you’ll be no more than one square column inch if that,’ she said, taking another step.

‘The press will?—’

‘The press won’t give a shit,’ Kim said. ‘With no formal statement from us, they’ll assume the Jester got bored or the case didn’t get solved. There will be no link to your death. No one will ever know it was you. You’ll die completely unknown and forgotten.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ he called as she continued her descent.

‘And I no longer care what you believe,’ she said as her feet met the ground.

‘Guv, what the hell are you…?’

‘Take a look around, Fred,’ she said, ignoring her colleague’s concerns. ‘This is where it ends for you. This’ll be the last thing you ever see. No newspapers, no television channels, no Wikipedia page with your name on it. You’ll be dead and gone, and Jared Truss will be enjoying all the glory of having assisted a killer who has disappeared into thin air.’

‘You can’t cover this up,’ he shouted.

‘I can if you’re dead. Who’s gonna stop me? Who else knows that you’re responsible? You’ve done such a good job of hiding yourself that even the rest of my team don’t know it’s you. It’s just a shame that no one is ever going to know how clever you were. You’ll be as unmemorable in death as you were in life. See, I’ve worked it out now, Fred. You just wanted to feel important. You wanted to be someone’s focus. Your life was always about your dad. You wanted people to followyou, to chaseyouand be thinking aboutyou.’

‘Guv, seriously,’ Bryant hissed.

Kim ignored him. She had come too far now. ‘You know, Fred, I’m not sure you’ve even thought this thing through. You got any idea what happens when you step off that platform?’

He said nothing.

‘To get instant death, you’re gonna have to take a run and jump, which you ain’t got the room to do. You’re going to step off and free-fall a few feet, and then the rope is gonna break your fall, but it’s not gonna kill you. Not straight away.’

She paused, wanting to give him the whole picture. ‘You ever choked on a piece of food and coughed until you couldn’t catch your breath? Ever had an asthma attack or allergic reaction where you couldn’t breathe deep? If you don’t immediately break your neck, you’re gonna feel all these things at once. While you’re choking to death, the blood pressure will build in your eyes and mouth causing your eyeballs and tongue to bulge. You’re gonna chew on your own tongue. You’re gonna writhe in agony until your final breath, and there’s nothing we can do from down here.’

He took the smallest step back.

She could understand Bryant’s concern at her actions, but she really had nothing left to lose. Despite having climbed the ladder, there was nothing she could have done to save him from up there. Her only chance had been to appeal to the things that were important to him.

And now she was about to seal the deal one way or the other.

She stepped back and folded her arms. ‘Go on then. Crack on,’ she called.

He would never know just how tightly she was holding on to the breath in her body. Her deliberate stance said she couldn’t care less, but she did care. She wanted to see this man face justice for what he’d done.

Very slowly, he reached up and removed the noose from around his neck.

Fred hesitated as though considering just falling to the ground. Her pulse quickened briefly before he took another step back as though feeling the impact of the ground smashing against his body wasn’t on his list of suicide methods.

He used the railings to step backwards onto the ladder that would bring him to the ground.

‘Jesus, Guv, you got me sweating then,’ Bryant whispered by her side.

‘Oh yeah,’ she said, finally exhaling as the man neared the bottom of the ladder.

She moved towards the winding tower and was waiting for him as his feet met solid ground.

She turned him around and took the handcuffs that were already in her colleague’s hands.